Punk Princess Leia Vest DIY

For a while I’d been thinking about what I wanted to wear to see the new Star Wars the Force Awakens movie. Lots of companies have been putting out stylish Star Wars clothing lately, but I saw this fun illustration by JULIAN CALLOS of a punk Princess Leia, “REBEL”! It’s inspired by Leia’s Hoth vest, which I’ve always liked. (You can read more about Callos’ piece here!) I realized it would be pretty easy to do up a vest like the one Callos designed and so I did! Maybe you’d like to do your own Punk Leia vest, too?

WHAT YOU NEED:

a quilted/puffed sleeve-less off-white vest with a short collar

Star Wars patches

Extra Slogan Patches

OPTIONAL: you may need some printable fabric or iron on transfer printable paper, safety pins, needle and thread.

There are several stores selling these sort of vests right now, so you can just find whatever you think looks cute on you. I suggest getting one that isn’t TOO puffy/bulky as it will probably be more flattering and look more like Leia’s. Leia’s also has a diagonal quilting at the bottom and a simpler top area. You probably won’t find an exact match but I thought this one I got at Sears was pretty good! Don’t worry about it being perfect. Uniqlo, Old Navy, JCPenney, Macy’s, LandsEnd, JCrew and others have some, too. (Remember to look for coupons online to increase your savings, too!)

I decided I would rather just put the large Rebel patch directly onto the back of my vest instead of onto black fabric and then onto the vest, but do whatever you prefer! You could also do up a distressed Rebel symbol in your image editing software (on a black background) and then print onto fabric and sew it onto your vest! More specifically, you could find the rebel symbol image in google, bring it into your image editing software over a black background and start drawing in the distressing, or use a distressing PS brush or overlay the image with some grunge filters. Then you can print it out on fabric or iron on transfers, etc. Punk is supposed to be about doing it yourself and being creative so don’t feel you have to be held back by a particular technique or a particular patch. You could even do an Imperial version of this vest instead…!

For my “No Imperials” cog patch… I got the Imperial cog at Hot Topic and needed to modify it to make it more like the illustration. I satin stitched around the edge of my Imperial cog symbol patch in hot pink and then satin stitched a diagonal line through the center.

As a side note, most of these patches I bought were iron on patches, however, I feel like a lot of the time they don’t stay on that well. You may feel the need to additionally stitch around the edges of the patches to make sure they stay on well. Be careful when machine sewing on iron on patches as sometimes your needle and/or machine can get gummed up a bit from the glue on the patch. You could also use some fabric glue.

For the extra slogan patches (REBEL SCUM and MAX REBO BAND): If you want to get closer to the illustration, you can print out this image I did up inspired by Callos’ drawing. Print on printable fabric or iron-on transfer, etc. Then cut around the two slogans. Following the illustration, I cut out the orange one smoothly and then roughly stitched it to my jacket making sure that the stitches showed to make it more punk looking. I cut out the black band slogan more roughly and then used 4 safety pins to put it on the vest. Remember, you can make your own slogans in any image editing software and then print them out as you like to add to your vest!

I’m just going to wear my vest casually but if you want to go all out and fully replicated Callos’ drawing, here’s some suggestions! You can rip the sleeves off a black t-shirt (preferably a vintage-inspired Star Wars one in case it shows from the front) to wear under your vest. Get yourself some Darth Vader gloves and cut the fingers off them. Take a pair of old jeans, even ones with holes in them for a more punk look and then apply some gold trim down the side seams ala Han Solo’s pants. (You can hand sew it on or use fabric glue if you can’t get your sewing machine all the way down the leg.) Try to find a fake silver chain for your belt so it won’t be too heavy. You’ll need some black finger nail polish, some clip in purple hair extensions and a few bandages and bandaids. There are tips on how to do Leia’s hair buns here, here , here and here.It’s even possible to get printable temporary tattoo paper so you could add the blaster and planet tattoos!